Enlightenment
by Yma
Summary: Sanzo considers Goku, and why he pushes him away. Possible SanzoGoku if you want to look at it like that. Contains some very harsh langauge. Please review.


_Enlightenment_

_By Yma_

_Disclaimer: The following characters are not creation of mine, this is a work of Fanfiction, ect, ect. Thank you. _

_The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;  
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;  
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.  
For nothing now can ever come to any good_

_WH Auden: Stop All the clocks. _

Sometimes I hate Goku so much it fucking hurts, and what hurts more is that some traitorous part of me says I should feel bad about that.

And sometimes I would like to shoot that part of me in the head. Except I think that's the only part of me that's keeping me even remotely human, so what can you do?

Fuck, I'm more a demon than any of my other travelling companion. Servants. Followers. Whatever.

I hate the rain too. Because it brings me to this sort of introspection which, when you get down to it, is entirely unnecessary.

Live for the moment. Live without thought, without attachment or regret. It just drags you down. Start considering your actions and you doubt your actions. Doubt your actions and you stop acting. Stop acting and you might as well go rot in the grave.

That's Buddhism for you. That's fucking Zen.

The perverse thing, the really fucking twisted thing, is that he's closer to it than I am.

Let me tell you, there's some sort of sick irony that enlightenment is misery. Enlightenment is the breakdown. When everything is dull except for the misery, when nothing exists but the moment, when you loose onto that final, traitorous attachment. The attachment to life.

That doesn't mean you want to die. To long for death is also a sort of attachment, a lust. No; it's that dull grey space wherein life holds no meaning and death no desire. When you simply exist, not expecting, not remembering, a soft emptiness that stretches on forever.

That's how I felt a year after my master's death. A year to let the horror sink in, a year of constant guilt, a year out in the world to discover that no one really gave a fuck. That the world really was a great big pile of shit, when you came right down to it.

The thing that fucked me off the most, I recall, wasn't how people treated me. Why should anyone give a shit about some poor little orphan boy? I'd long grown used to the idea that people, in general, don't care about other people. That I was nothing worth much consideration unless someone wanted something from me. My money, my life… my body.

OK… perhaps there was some horror in it. Perhaps some little part of me had dared to think that it might not be like that but… well, I was young and stupid.

No. What pissed me off was how they treated _his_ death. I felt like there should be some recognition. That women would tear their hair, men would weep in the streets, children fall silent, the whole world bent with grief over Komyo Sanzo. How the fuck could they not know what they'd lost? I asked myself. How could they not see the massive hole in the universe left by his passing? How could they just fucking continue as ordinary when the most beautiful, tranquil, perfect thing in this entire shitty world… in all the fucking heavens… was gone?

It was as if the sun had been stolen from the sky, casting the world into darkness. And each day I woke up, expecting to see the daylight… then remembering that it was gone. And everyone just fumbles around in the darkness as if nothing had happened. Fumbles around to their inevitable despair because how could anything come to any good now the light was gone? Now the best fucking thing in this fucking world had turned to ashes?

The only person who could smile in the face of the hell that, back then, I thought was Nirvana.

So I go on to meet Jinku and I find something to fill the emptiness, even if it's just cigarettes and alcohol.

If nothing else Jinku showed me that, while the sun may have been extinguished, there were still some stars. And I was gonna have to fight hard if I wanted to keep those around too.

That latter part was realized around the point his body hit the floor.

So I left my hellish paradise, my little grey haven of despair and entered the big bad world.

And I was doing just fine, moving through it all… when I met him…

Which brings me back to the topic of Son Goku and my utter loathing of him.

He hasn't got a clue, because he's managed something I've been struggling to attain for years now. An utter lack of introspection.

Perhaps he did so much of it in his cave that he's just through of everything there is to think. Perhaps he sent himself so insane with loss and pain that he's come right through the other side? Fuck knows.

What pisses me off… what really, really pisses me off beyond all comprehension is how he talks about me. I'm his fucking sun! I'm the one who's strong! I'm his master, his road to enlightenment!

How the fuck could something that old get it so fucking wrong! And how could it be like that anyway? Who died and made him the fucking Sanzo? Not me! Though I might.

That'd throw a spanner in the works of that shit-eating merciful goddess. Go die and make Goku the next Sanzo, just out of pure spite. He might even be good at it.

Heh, yeah, like that's gonna happen, I'd sooner put a bullet between his brows than a charka. Whatever the little bastard's done, nothing's worth that sort of punishment.

He's looking at me now, eyes wide with hurt as I slap his hand away. What's he doing taking my temperature? Do I look like I need nannying? Yeah, I'm not the toughest guy in this little troupe of freaks, but I survived enough time on my own that I don't need anyone fussing over me, least of all him.

And those eyes, big, wide, golden begging bowls of love fill me with disgust. They make me want to say something stupid like, 'I'm sorry.'

They make me want to debase myself to him, to lay myself open like a child, to protect him and shelter him and fuck how can I do that again? How can I let anyone do that to me again? To spread my heart like some whore spreads her legs?

So I kick out and throw down his offerings to me. So I glare as tears spring to his eyes. So I send him away.

It's for the better.

Doesn't he know I'll only drag him down? Doesn't he know what he does? What he echoes with his careless laugh? The sweet tranquillity of his transient life? The life he lives for the moment, unburned by past or future or fucking scripture?

He's so bright, this monkey. This earth spirit… this child. He's so bright and hopeful and open and he's standing before me, his arms outstretched, summoning me from the dark sanctity of my cold soul.

Doesn't he understand that it's better here? That from here I cannot be hurt?

He's worse than Hakkai, who's kindnesses belay a sort of cruelty, a guilt trip of epic proportions. If one were parley to guilt. Which I am not.

He wants to follow me, and in turn be followed. To take him by the hand and love him, protect him, teach him. It's almost expected, as natural a curve as that of an apple… or the sun.

But the darkness is so much better. Because there is no fear in the darkness. No one to see you fall, or cry, or die. No complications, no confusion.

Sometimes, when it rains, I dream I go to him and intimacy overcomes me.

In this dream I make paper planes, which fly through rainy skies unhindered. In this dream I spill myself to him, tell him of the world. All its many bitter cruelties, its few tender beauties. I tell him of my life, of his, of the world. I give everything to him, I hold him and comfort him and remain there for him, his teacher. His sensei. His Sanzo. And in the end I hold him and he tells me he'll protect me, as I will him. And in the end I lie in a pool of my own blood, whilst he screams above me. The sun of his life extinguished.

He doesn't need that kind of pain.

So even if I had so much to give, I would not. I am not a good man. I am not a kind man. But I think I am good enough, and kind enough, never to wish that he follows my footsteps.

It's raining, and somewhere Goku is running, free and wild and enlightened beyond his wildest dreams, though tears spill down his stupid, Monkey face.

It is better that way.

So I hate Son Goku.

Hate, which is a far blunter and kinder blade than love.

End


End file.
